


Check Your Accuracy Privilege at the Door

by thewitchofgeek



Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 03:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14034741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewitchofgeek/pseuds/thewitchofgeek
Summary: They really should have expected this at a Villains/Heroes themed costume party.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This bar is based on a real place. All drinks ordered are actually on their drink menu.
> 
> [Cloak and Blaster Website](http://www.cloakandblaster.com/)

In hindsight, the owner of the newly-christened Cape and Blaster should definitely have seen this coming.

Millennials weren’t coming out to pubs these days, it seemed. Bars with cheap liquor and piss-water beer, sure – but not pubs, with higher-quality alcohols, with exquisite (yet affordable food). The 50-year old owner of the pub formerly called “The Decadent Drunkard” knew this all too well. His son, a 35 year old, had it on good authority that tabletop gaming and arcade bars were experiencing an uptick in popularity. The owner’s 10-year old granddaughter was obsessed with superheroes. It seemed like an easy choice to name the rebranded pub “The Cape and Blaster”.

Business was good for the first few months, and the pub was out of the red. But as October approached, more and more customers asked if there would be a costume contest – this was a nerd bar, after all.

With so many people asking, the owner and his son didn’t see any harm in it. Hell, why didn’t they tie it into the name while they were at it? Superheroes versus Supervillains! Four categories – one for solo heroes, one for solo villains, one for hero groups, and one for villain groups. What could go wrong?

The answer was simply EVERYTHING.

The night started out fine, the standard costumes appearing. A Captain Fistfight or two, one girl with an utterly fantastic Illuminarcher cosplay, and one or two minor faces from the rogues gallery.

It was around 11:30 that things started getting… interesting.

First came a young man with a lab coat and a bag on his head - apparently he was dressed as some supervillain hotshot.

Sitting down at the bar, they picked up a drinks menu and merely hummed. “No, no, that won’t do anythi- oooh.” He set down the menu. “Dark Apparition.”

“I.D. first.” said the bartender.

The costumed man sighed. “Oh, I was hoping you’d say that! I haven’t gotten the chance to try this out yet, and this seems like the perfect thing to test it for!” He scrambled for something in an inner pocket of his lab coat, finally pulling out what appeared to be an MIB Neuralyzer.

“Okay, so please look right here!” A flash. The bartender shook his head.

“Are you alright, sir?” the cosplayer asked. Something seemed off, but it wasn’t quite apparent. He’d let it slide, thought the bartender.

“Y-yeah. Musta dozed off. Did ya order somethin’?”

“Dark Apparition. Already showed you my I.D.”

\--

By the time the bartender had come back with drinks, the man was already in a heated argument with someone in a similar costume.

“And I’m telling you, there’s no way that Doctor Flug Slys is less than 1.9 meters! Another thing that makes me the superior cosplayer! And your lab coat! There’s hardly enough stains on it! What kind of mad scientist doesn’t have stains on their lab coat?”

“The kind that specializes in mechanical engineering and only dabbles with chemistry because of an impossible boss,” the original muttered. Seeing the drink, they nodded. “Could I get a straw?”

This is when the bartender should have bowed out, because a flash of color straight from 2007 MySpace bounded straight for the bar.

The first cosplayer hunched over his drink, trying to make himself smaller. It didn’t work.

“FLUGBUG!” the eyesore screamed as she bolted over, causing the first cosplayer (Flug Prime, the bartender decided) to groan.

The second cosplayer (Stickler would be his new name – it fit.) somehow managed to roll his eyes under the mask. “UGH. Really? There are so many BETTER female villains to dress as!”

“Oh now you’ve done it,” Flug Prime muttered. “Dem, don’t go too hard on them – oh, what am I saying? When you do, clean up after yourself?”

‘Dem’ squinted her eyes. “Better female villians, huh? Name one that’s infiltrated an alphabet agency and exited said alphabet agency with classified information and equipment, all without a single injury? Name one that’s survived working with Black Hat for an extended period of time? Name one, go on, name one.”

Apparently this was too much for Stickler to process, and he looked away, mute for a good five minutes as ‘Dem’ perused the drink menu. “Gimme a Sonic Screwdriver.”

“I –“ Another flash.

“She gave you her I.D. already.”

Dazed, the bartender walked off.

“Well,” Stickler said finally. “Either way, your hair is too short. Most pictures of Demencia have her hair at about 1 meter. Your wig is what? 1.2 meters? Also, aren’t you a bit too tall to be cosplaying Demencia?”

‘Dem’ turned to look at Stickler. “Your bag. It’s not made of recycled materials, your shirt is more of a cyan than a true blue, there’s no red collar, the plane is broken in the wrong direction, and those sneakers aren’t even converse. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

Grumbling, Stickler slapped a few bills on the counter and turned to leave. As he was about to exit the pub, the door opened.

Smoke trailed in from an unknown source, lights flickering, ultimately blacking out for a solid minute. A cold presence approached the bar.

Flug Prime merely sighed. “Nice to have you join us, Jefecito.”


	2. Chapter 2

The extremely good cosplayer (because that’s what he was, that’s what he HAD to be, for the bartender’s sanity) merely sneered.

“This is what you’re doing tonight?”

“I’m sorry, shouldn’t you be devouring the souls of children who approach the manor or something?”

The neon abomination piped in at this. “They stopped coming two years ago, Flugbug.”

Flug Prime nodded. “Almost sad they did. The Girl Scout cookies were a nice lift to the busy season.”

The Extremely Good Cosplayer facepalmed. “Glenfiddich.”

The bartender stared for a minute. Did this guy eat nails for breakfast and use acid as milk? Were they a chainsmoker at five packs a day? What the hell was with this guy’s voice?

They leaned in. “Glenfiddich. Now.”

For some reason, the bartender received the impression that he would regret it if he asked for the newcomer’s ID, and left to fetch the scotch.

When the bartender came back, there was a horrifying (yet almost amusing) sight – fifteen different cosplayers of various heroes and villains, all crowded around The Extremely Good Cosplayer.

A Captain Fistfight was side-eyeing The EGC’s tailcoat. “I dunno, I think the cut’s a little off on the collar. Should be taller.”

The Illuminarcher cosplayer, meanwhile, was critiquing the lack of cane. “Black Hat is NEVER seen without his cane. It’s a must!”

A Johnny Snow merely rolled his eyes. “Too short. Black Hat’s gotta be like, 2 meters tall, right?”

The bartender quickly slid over the scotch and fled to the opposite end of the bar. Even though they may only be an Extremely Good Cosplayer, they did have that aura of being about to slaughter everyone in the bar, and that was something that took theatrical training, or just retail experience.

A second Technicolor eyesore sidled up to The EGC. “Hey! Nice Black Hat cosplay! Maybe later we could do a couple’s shoot?” They wiggled their eyebrows.

The EGC slammed back their drink, life leaving their eyes. “Seven hells, they’re multiplying.”

‘Dem’ narrowed her eyes. “I’m sorry?” she said, turning to the newcomer. “I don’t think I heard that right. Did you just flirt. With my bombon?”

“Employee, Demencia. Not lover, not anything more. I hired you for a specific reason, and it was not to warm my bed.” The EGC rapped on the counter. “Keep them coming.”

The bartender nodded, and looked to Flug Prime, who had been engrossed in some sort of device under the table. “Oh, yeah. Uh. Another one of whatever this was. Straw, too.”

Sure. Okay. The bartender nodded. Drinks. He could deal with those. Alcohol was easy to understand.

“IF YOU THINK THAT YOU’RE SUCH HOT SHIT, MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY TO WIN, THEN!”

“FINE!”

“FINE!”

“Just fuck my life up, I won’t even complain, it’s already messed up as it is, what more could possibly go wrong?” Flug Prime whispered as his stout was slid over. ‘Dem’ stomped over to the signup sheet, scribbling BHO as their entry and FUCK OFF as their group name.

The remaining half-hour until the contest was tense, to say the least.

\----

The group entries for villains had only one more entrant.

“And last we have… Am I? Allowed to say this? “Eff Off”, with their BHO group entry.”

An unwilling Flug Prime stood behind ‘Dem’ and The EGC. Pure venom rolled off of the two in front, with sheer indifference and a hint of anxiety from Flug Prime. It wasn’t bad, the bartender had to admit.

A round of hearty applause, and it was time for voting. “Everyone, there should be a piece of paper in front of you. Please write your Villain’s Group Winner on it, and we will come around to collect your votes.”

As the votes were being tallied, a news bulletin overtook the main television. It had been playing classic horror movies, but it seemed that something IMPORTANT and RELEVANT had to happen.

“The infamous dive, ‘The Caged Canary’, was set ablaze earlier tonight. Investigators are unsure what could have caused this fire, and are not ruling out foul play. Rumors of illicit activity have swarmed ‘The Caged Canary’ for years, among the rumors being that it was secretly a meeting place for high-end criminals. The owners have declined to comment on the matter.”

The bar went silent for not even a minute before the Announcer opened her mouth to speak. “And the winner for the Villains Group category is-“

“Well that explains why you followed us here,” ‘Dem’ stated, only loud enough for her companions and the unwitting bartender to hear. “What’d they do? Play something from this century?”

“Villainous Visages, with their fantastic BHO cosplays!”

Flug Prime couldn’t have run out the door fast enough.

As the bar counter was set ablaze with no matches in sight, the bartender was beginning to wish he had as well.

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Gaster on the Villainous Discord.


End file.
